My Memoirs. Marguerite Steinheil

above the head, and too little at the sides.... He would have the canvas enlarged.

      But when it was returned to him, he did not like the seams, and precipitately painted out the picture.

      I came with my mother and Marthe to see my child's masterful portrait and to sit for mine. When we found that the picture had been destroyed, my mother cried with rage; I shed tears of disappointment. And when I told my old friend that he might have kept the bust only, and cut the picture in a suitable oval, he was as sorry as we all were. That day I had not the heart to sit, nor did Bonnat have the heart to paint!

      I spent many delightful hours in that studio. Bonnat asked me to decorate and arrange it to my taste, for he knew full well the intense joy I had in handling beautiful or rare things, and how keen was my love of proportion, harmony, and colour-schemes....

      The painter, who was my husband's friend as well as mine, was one of the few men aware that we were not as happy as we appeared or pretended to be. He knew that often in Society, masks, more or less transparent, are worn by husbands and wives, and he did his best to give us those joys and interests which add so much to life, especially when the mainspring is broken and the machine has to be kept going as best it can.

      Bonnat was kind to all, especially to poor artists. I once spoke to him about a young and unsuccessful painter who believed in his genius and, what is worse, had made another share his delusions; a poor little girl to whom he gave his unknown name and who gave him her love and—several children. I did my utmost to relieve their misery, and then wrote and asked Bonnat to examine the young man's work.

      I went to the studio in the Rue Bassano shortly afterwards.

      "Well, what is it like?" I asked.

      "Nothing in it so far," Bonnat replied. "Why on earth does the fellow paint? The only way of saving him is to make him give up Art and adopt some other profession. Will you send him to me one of these days?"

      "He's downstairs, waiting...." And I ran away before my old friend could exclaim his usual "Just like you!"

      Bonnat questioned the young painter about his parents and heard that they were farmers. In his entertaining way he spoke of Nature, country-life, the simple life.... "And do you really think," he exclaimed in conclusion, "that if it were not for the Institute, the Council of the Légion d'Honneur, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, of which I am the director, and a score of other Societies and Committees to which I belong, I would remain here one single hour longer. No, sir! And you should consider yourself as a lucky dog. If I were free, as you are, I would go and live in my dear Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near the sea and near the Pyrenees, and breathe, and work.... As for painting, it is a wonderful thing, fascinating, ideal, sublime and all that, and I am rather fond of it myself, but there's no living in it unless you made a name for yourself forty years ago, as I did, for people liked good and beautiful things in those days, and paid for them.... If I were you, I'd paint what I pleased—in my leisure, and adopt some simple profession to earn my living. Ask your father to let you help him on his farm, and if you send me a picture every year and it's good enough, I'll try to get it accepted at the Salon.... By the way, do you care for a good cigar?"

      "Rather," said the young painter, who although born in the country had spent several years in Montmartre.

      "Well, then, my lad, take this box with you." And Bonnat dismissed him in the blunt manner which he assumed whenever he did a good action.

      I saw the young man a few days later, before his departure for the country, where he was to become a prosperous farmer, though he never gave up painting, and he told me, with big tears in his eyes, that he had found in the box, besides the cigars, ten hundred-franc notes, and Bonnat's card with these words, "Good Luck."

      "How shall I thank M. Bonnat," he kept repeating, after I had filled him with tea and cakes so that he might recover.

      "I'll tell you," I replied. "By, not thanking him at all. He loathes gratitude."

      Massenet, the composer of Manon, Thaïs, Sapho, Werther, and so many other delightful operas, did me, for many years, the great honour of calling himself my "respectful, obedient, and faithful accompanist." I always found him whimsical, enthusiastic, mischievous, and fond of jokes. As he entered my salon, at some crowded reception, he would wave aside the valet about to announce his name, and shout in a stentorian voice: "Massenet!"... Once, he added, "Grand officer of the legion of honour, author of a score of operas, member of several academies!" And as soon as he had greeted me and shaken hands with a few friends, he started his favourite sport: pun-making. He had a knack of ending the most serious arguments, even about music, with a bon mot, and I sincerely believe that he enjoyed the successes of his witticisms quite as much as the success of his operas. He said himself: "I am a composer, that's true and I can't help it, but at the same time I love fun and youth, and boys of sixty are incorrigible."

      Once, some foreigners called on me, and Massenet begged me to mumble his name when I should introduce him. A little later, he was talking music to the newcomers, and in time mentioned Massenet, whose music he lightly disparaged, with the result that they agreed with him, as he seemed to know all about music, and even went further and declared Massenet's music quite unbearable. Thereupon the composer sat at the piano and played some of his own music as he alone could play it, and Massenet's critics went into ecstasies. "Ah, that's what one may call real music," they said. "Who wrote it?"

      "A friend of mine," Massenet replied airily, and he played again, saying when he had concluded, "That was my own."

      "It's perfectly sweet. You ought to have your music printed."

      "I occasionally do."

      "Really! Would you mind repeating your name, we didn't quite catch it!"

      "Massenet," and with infinite good grace the composer handed his card, and left the room in order to have his laugh outside.

      His letters were most amusing. They were interspersed with bars of music and "sketches" to emphasise or illustrate his meaning. And they invariably contained some welcome remark about his work: "I have just left the Opera Comique. I am quite done up, but the interpretation at this rehearsal was splendid; singers, orchestra, everything. And Calvé! She's divine.... Ah! The fourth act, you will see what she makes of it!..." But long before his letters reached me, Massenet came himself, although "done up," and played to me that fourth act, and made me sing it... under the eyes of my mother and of Marthe, wrapped in ecstasy! Massenet worshipped my daughter and always perched the darling on the top of the piano, where he played.

      In order that Marthe might accompany me, he had the charming idea of composing a few songs for me, the accompaniments of which were very simple and easy and without octaves, which were as yet beyond her reach. On the day when she played the first of these "Do not give thy heart," Massenet indulged in an orgy of puns and jokes, which was a sign of perfect contentment.

      François Coppée, an old comrade of my husband's and one of my "faithful," as he called himself, lived close to us and often came in to have a chat, to look at the flowers in my "winter garden" or to listen to music.

      One day, when Reyer, the composer of Sigurd was present, he remarked that music was not only the most sociological and popular of arts, it was also the easiest. "I could not play a chord, but I feel sure that it is easier to express one's self in music than in written words...."

      Reyer decreed: "It is quite as difficult to frame a melody as to frame a sonnet." But Coppée refused to believe it, and going to the piano, he struck a note mightily. "That's a war-cry," he exclaimed; then touched the same note gently, "And that's melancholy," and playing it once more as softly as possible, "And that's reverie: Music is above all wonderful because it is so simple!" It was a mere sally on his part, and Reyer laughed heartily.

      Coppée was kind, tender-hearted, and sociable, the very type of the popular and sentimental Parnassien. He spoke in an artless manner, as much like a Christian as a poet, and the modesty of this Academicien, this "immortal" loaded with honours, was delightful.

      He found me one evening reading some verses of Heredia.